sun 04/06/2023

New Music Reviews

Nick Mulvey, Chalk, Brighton review - cult star shines bright

Thomas H Green

Welcome to the church of Mulvey. The sold-out venue is packed with a svelte crowd, mostly ranging in age between about 30 and 45. Nick Mulvey is playing a new number which has an air of lockdown-inspiration about it, with its lines about “missing every one of you” and “feeling grace in solitude”.

Read more...

Suede, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - a messianic performance from Britpop's originators

Guy Oddy

“Why do we come to concerts?” asks Brett Anderson, Suede’s ringmaster and vocalist, before launching into an acoustic version of “The Wild Ones” from the stage of Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. “We come to concerts to feel something together, for a sense of community. So, if you know the words, please sing along.”

Read more...

Robert Forster, Lafayette review - élan, spontaneity and thoughtfulness from the former Go-Between

Kieron Tyler

“Learn to Burn” generates the loudest and most sustained applause. As it was originally the opening track of Robert Forster’s 2015 album Songs to Play, the response is unexpected. It’s preceded by a version of his old band The Go-Betweens’ “Spring Rain,” and this London show follows the February release of his most recent album The Candle and the Flame – which would be an assumed focus of attention. So would an old favourite. This is a dedicated, attentive audience.

Read more...

Album: Cécile McLorin Salvant - Mélusine

Kieron Tyler

In European folklore, mélusine are woman from the waist up and fish or serpent below. The fabled character is first known in the 13th century. Mélusine dwell in inland water – rivers, wells and such.

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: Duffy Power - Innovations, Live at the BBC

Kieron Tyler

Sometime in early October 1963 John Lennon and Paul McCartney encountered The Rolling Stones and offered them one of their songs; one which became the London blues aficionado’s second single. “I Wanna be Your Man” was duly recorded on 7 October 1963 and released on 1 November. Thanks to The Beatles, the Stones charted for the first time. A Liverpool-London, north-south divide had been breached.

Read more...

Kreator, Chalk, Brighton review - an invigoratingly relentless assault

Thomas H Green

Mille Petrozza is roaring into the mic, teeth gritted, black hair flailing. Behind his growl-screeching a triumphant martial riff is holding the “tune” and behind that, never-ceasing drum beats, an exercise in pure velocity.

Read more...

Ladytron, SWG3, Glasgow review - synth stars show time hasn't diminished their relevance

Jonathan Geddes

It is a sign of Ladytron’s longevity and relevance that their support acts are now performers clearly inspired by the quartet. Elisabeth Elektra, here picked for opening the night in her home city, may not have the icy cool of the evening’s headliners, but the lineage of her buoyantly loud electro pop was clear.

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: Heavy Metal Kids - The Albums 1974-76

Kieron Tyler

The booklet coming with The Albums 1974-76 notes Johnny Rotten saw Heavy Metal Kids live and that the Sex Pistol “ripped off” their frontman Gary Holton. It's an assertion in keeping with a default option where the HMKs are referred to as a precursor band to punk – one helping to lay the table for it.

Read more...

Lucia and the Best Boys, SWG3, Glasgow review - a celebratory homecoming for rising star

Jonathan Geddes

Jessica Winter is clearly a hardy soul. The Portsmouth singer made a point of shedding her jacket and top as her support set went on, a bold choice given the typically unpredictable Glasgow weather was serving up freezing snow outside at the time.

Read more...

Album: Fever Ray - Radical Romantics

Kieron Tyler

According to the press release for Karin Dreijer’s third album as Fever Ray, its completion was preceded by many hours of therapy with the result new things are known. Amongst them that Dreijer “can be struck by despair but also by the big feeling of love and awe”. Dreijer declares “I know what love is and I want to show you”. Radical Romantics is the result of these realisations.

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

Music Reissues Weekly: Heavenly - Le Jardin de Heavenly

“It takes a real effort to sound this small, this timid; to resist the effort to rock out and kick pedal. Singer ‘Amelia’ (oh yeah, I bet that’s...

Reality review - Sydney Sweeney excels as a whistleblower

The actress Sydney Sweeney’s face in the harrowing docudrama Reality is an ever-evolving map, its contours and pallor altering as it...

Amanda review - too-intense Gen Z-er seeks a friend, boyfrie...

Needy, truculent, and aggressive, an in-your-face stick of intensity and guilt-inducing melancholy, privileged young Amanda in...

Album: King Krule - Space Heavy

At first, I misread the title of the lead single “Seaforth” from King Krule’s fourth album, Space Heavy, as “Sea Froth”. It felt...

Bleak Expectations, Criterion Theatre review - popular radio...

We all need a break from time to time, especially now given the grim state of the world. So it’s not surprising that comedy is making something of...

Disney 100 - The Concert, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - a slic...

There are a few perils to saying supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as Janette Manrara discovered on this opening night of...

Album: Dream Wife - Social Lubrication

Five years ago, breaking dry January a few days early, I joined a throng of folks amongst the merch boxes and strip lights of Rough Trade East to...

Mad About the Boy review - entertaining cradle-to-grave Noel...

Devoted fans may not learn anything that new about Noel Coward from Barnaby Thompson’s...